The Gift That's Been Given

Chapter 1

"Come on Sis, let's go" said my little brother as he pulled on my sleeve.

"Relax, Caleb. The park is only two streets away, we will be there soon I promise" I said, but Caleb was too excited to pay attention.

We fast walked to the park and Caleb raced over to the swings. Surprisingly there wasn't anyone else here but my brother and I.

"Faye, push me on the swings!" my brother whined.

"Yeah, yeah. Just wait a minute" I said as I walked over to the swing.

"Yay!" he cried as I pushed him.

Today was my brother's 8th birthday. My mum and dad are at work and couldn't get the day off to spend it with Caleb so they asked me to make sure he has a nice birthday. That's way I am doing what he asks, not just because I'm a complete push over.

"Caleb, I think my arms are about to fall off. Do you think you could go play on something else for a while?" I asked as I sat on the swing next to his.

"Okay" he replied as he jumped off the moving swing.

I started swaying back and forth on my swing, leaning back so I could go higher. I looked around the park, it was unusually empty. The grass looked dull and flat at the tall, old gum trees moved slowly and against each other's momentum. The sky was completely covered in light grey clouds with a cool and quick, yet strong gust of wind occurring from time to time.

Nervous jittering interrupted my daze, I looked up and saw that it was Caleb. There was a golden brown Labrador retriever about two meters away from him. Caleb has been scared of dogs for as long as he has lived. I leaped up out of my swing and hurried over to Caleb. I pulled up behind him and he turned himself around to face me and buried himself in my arms.

"Go on, shew!" I said to the dog as i waved my hand at it.

The dog turned its head to the side and gave me a questioned look. A large gust of wind suddenly appeared, carrying leaves and dirt with it. I squinted my eyes half closed and hugged Caleb tighter as I waited for the wind to pass. I watched the leaves in the wind as they hurried by, though some of them began to gather in the air in front of me. I opened my eyes again to see that the leaf formation looked like something.

Letters.

A message.

You have to leave.

I gasped and closed my eyes shut again. Caleb began pushing at me and I let him go as I reopened my eyes. The message had disappeared with the wind just as fast as it had come, the dog was also gone and Caleb had calmed down.

"Hey Caleb, are you alright?" I asked him.

"Yeah" he replied weakly.

I grabbed his hand and he looked up at me.

"It's getting late, we should go home now. Besides, if mum and dad are home you get to choose what we all have for dinner"

"Great" beamed Caleb.

My mum and dad were standing in the kitchen talking when Caleb and I got home.

"Happy birthday sweetheart" my mum said as she squeezed Caleb.

"Happy birthday kiddo" said dad as he ruffed Caleb's hair.

"Where have you two been all afternoon?" my mum inquired.

"We were at the park" I replied.

"Did you have fun?" she asked.

'Yeah, until the dog showed up" said Caleb.

Mum shot me a look of daggers as if I had sent the dog there myself.

"It's okay mum, the dog went away after a few minutes. I didn't let it get anywhere near Caleb" I spoke.

"That's good to hear. You two better you get cleaned up if you still want to go out for dinner." Said my mum as she glanced down at Caleb.

I walked into my bedroom, closed the door and flopped down on my bed. I really didn't like it when my mum was so protective about Caleb and his fear of dogs, she won't let a single one come near him. When it comes to my fears though, I don't think she could give a damn but that's probably because I should have grown out of mine years ago.

I'm afraid of the ocean, well not exactly. I'm afraid of not knowing what surrounds me in the ocean.

The ocean hasn't been the only thing that scares me lately. I keep seeing things, messages to be exact, and they all keep telling me the same thing. They keep telling me to leave. Some of them are handwritten notes like the one I got six weeks ago on the last day of grade ten, I thought it was someone's stupid idea of a joke. Two weeks ago it was written on the foggy mirror of my bedroom window and today it was the leaves in the park.

I haven't told anyone about them, I don't think anyone would believe me if I did. It didn't bother me at first but now it is really starting to freak me out. Some is playing a really cruel joke on me or they are trying to get rid of me. Either way, I have had enough of it.

We arrived at the Chinese restaurant in time for dinner and quickly ordered our meals. The restaurant was quite large with vibrant Chinese decorations and gleaming yellow lights.

We all shared our meals around the table, taking mouthfuls of all the delicious food. Once we were finished we grabbed a fortune cookie each and cracked it open to read the fortune. This restaurant was pretty slack when it comes to fortune cookies, more than half of them were filled with blank fortunes.

Crack!

Sounded my cookie as I split it open then I pulled out my fortune.

"Blank" spoke dad.

"Blank" sighed mum.

"Nothing" whined Caleb.

Mine wasn't blank like my families though, it read:

"Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately. Repeat: say nothing."

"How about yours Hun?" asked my mum.

"Blank again" I said quickly scrunching the paper in my hand.

"Didn't look blank to me" my dad replied as he snatched the fortune out of my hands.

I waited for my dad to respond to the creepy message but he just sat there flipping the paper over and over looking for the writing.

"That's strange, I thought I saw writing on the paper" he questioned.

"Nope, like I said, blank again" I spoke, trying to hide my relief

"Well, we should get going now" mum said, snapping my attention back to her.

"Yeah" said Caleb and I in unison.